We had plenty of reports from other testers about Ploesti. I didn't think I needed to add anything to that. I concluded from those reports that bombing in the game was greatly exaggerated.

You are very wrong here, Flavio. Please do no harm to the game play with your conclusions made in some pre-beta version. City bombing and flak effectiveness was changed quite a bit. If you didn't test it or you are not interested in it, it doesn't mean that it should be called "madness" or with other bold statements, you are trying to operate recently.

It is up to each players to choose how to deal with it. It can be fully ignored, but it doesn't mean that it is broken to the level of "utter madness".

Someone who is witnessing to odd examples can always post on a tech forum. We can't be blamed by ignoring it. Without such reports and saves, I can just keep wasting my time in such pointless discussions, which otherwise could be used to make it better.

In my game vs Pelton, I have tried to bomb and shutdown the refinery in Ploesti. I have used 12 regiments flying from Crimea equiped with DB3/IL4/PE8. Result of every raid was 0-4% damage to refinery for loss of 20-30 bombers. It is not worth it. With only 21 IL4 produced per week I would run out of heavy bombers very fast.

Pavel, what you're asking here is for Soviet players to play a game of whack a mole in autumn of 41 spending precious APs and armaments to put flak in cities hundreds of miles in the rear that simply were not being bombed at this time in the first place to avoid opportunistic Axis factory bombing. Ultimately, they'll wind up railing all this stuff to the map edge and saying the hell with it. (Stalingrad probably should be evacuated anyways during the winter, regardless of factory bombing. I have always done so. But now it looks like we can add Gorky to that list.)

This in my estimation isn't adding anything to the game in terms of realism. It's just introducing a whole new level of micromanagement in order to deal with some very dubious bombing missions.

Flavio, you keep making strange statements.. from "broken madness" argument, you switched to "nothing adding".. what can I say - "yes there are more simple games out there and from other side it is still not as real as a war itself". Otherwise I can't agree on anything you wrote.

Gorky can be protected. AA are cheap and you don't need hundreds of them. Germans still can make some damage they historically did ( ex. GAZ was out of action for 100 days), but it could cost them much more than it was historically.

Bob, I took a look at your save and I must agree with your opponent. You do nothing to protect your industrial cities. There is any single PVO AA unit attached to Stalingrad! Also the air base which covers it located 4 hexes south. Night intercepts are especially sensitive to the range. Once I built 4 AA Regs in Stalingrad enemy started to lose >50% of his night bombers causing very minor damage.

So you really need to build PVO in all industrial cities within the range of German bombers.

Ok Pavel I stand corrected. In future games I will build PVO AA Regiments in my industrial cities as soon as I can and move my airbases closer to the cities. But in my defense:

1. In this game I did build a PVO AA Regiment (along with 2 AA battalions) attached to my Southern Air Command HQ on Turn 7. I did this because Saper likes to bomb airfields and HQs and I wanted to see what effect building nearby flak would have on these attacks. Please take a look at this HQ and you will see that on T16 it has built up to only 3 76mm AA Guns when it's TOE is suppose to be 20! The reason for this slow growth, I believe, is because of a bug which prevented support units from upgrading equipment, in this case from the 76mm AA gun to the 85mm AA gun. Since the 76mm AA gun went out of production before the game even starts obviously none were being produced to fill up the PVO AA Regiments. So if I had built 4 PVO AA regiments in Stalingrad and Gorky and every other industrial city in range of German bombers there would have been even fewer 76mm AA guns to go around. I would have been lucky to have even 2 such guns with each regiment after 9 turns. So, with respect, I don't think these PVO AA regiments would have had any real effect. Accordingly, before I go and spend APs building all of these PVO AA regiments can you please confirm that this bug has been fixed and they will upgrade to the 85mm AA gun. For that matter why is the default when these units are built the 76mm AA gun in the first place, shouldn't it be the 85mm?

2. I was not aware that night intercepts were so sensitive to range and thought that 4 hexes (about 10 minutes flying time away) would be close enough, my bad. I must have missed reading this in the manual (sorry for the sarcasm I realize you didn't write the manual). I'll move my airbases closer to the cities. However, I have been pleading here and on my AAR for anyone to tell me what I could do to have an effect on his night bombing and no one until now has told me that the fighter bases need to be right next to the city. So either this is not common knowledge or else the people reading these Forums were not willing to help me (and I know the latter isn't true). Even when my fighters did intercept they were next to useless. So if I move the airbases closer will this just cause more useless fighters to intercept or will they actually be more effective in combat as well.

Finally, did you find the battle where the 7 Rumanian bombers intercepted by the MIGs caused 12 points of factory damage? If so is that WAD?

Not sure what you mean by "protected" as I admit I never had a PVO AA regiment in Stalingrad because of the bug. But there was protection in the form of fighter intercept by 9 MIGs. Regardless I just don't think that 7 mediumn bombers (Rumaniian at that) should be able to inflict double digit damage. It was in the saved game I sent you. Here is the bombing attack which preceded it (4 of 5) which increased the damage to 59%.

did you find the battle where the 7 Rumanian bombers intercepted by the MIGs caused 12 points of factory damage? If so is that WAD?

No, I haven't seen it. I never was able to produce significant damage to the factories once protecting them.

Please let me know how to reproduce it. Thanks.

Pavel, I know you are very busy and, despite my tone, I do appreciate your taking the time to look at this and explain things to me. But could you please answer my questions about the PVO AA regiments, in particular:

1. Was it a bug that was causing them to not change equipment from the 76mm AA gun to the 85mm AA gun? 2. Has this bug been fixed in the latest patch (1.06.22) so that they will now change equipment and build up to strength in a reasonable period of time (3 to 5 turns)? 3. If not what can I do to "protect" my industry?

Regardless I just don't think that 7 mediumn bombers (Rumaniian at that) should be able to inflict double digit damage.

Me too, just give exact steps to reproduce it. I don't see it to happen. I was not even close to reproduce it in the save you provided.

quote:

Not sure what you mean by "protected" as I admit I never had a PVO AA regiment in Stalingrad because of the bug.

You could still build them and they were not useless.

quote:

By the way, as you can see my intercepting fighter airbase is only 3 hexes away not 4. So just how close does it need to be anyway?

There are many factors, range is among them. The close it is the better chance them to intercept.

quote:

1. Was it a bug that was causing them to not change equipment from the 76mm AA gun to the 85mm AA gun?

Yes, there was a bug for support unit upgrade. Especially those attached to the cities.

quote:

2. Has this bug been fixed in the latest patch (1.06.22) so that they will now change equipment and build up to strength in a reasonable period of time (3 to 5 turns)?

Yes, it should be fixed.

quote:

3. If not what can I do to "protect" my industry?

Nothing new. Build AA in the cities. AA is very powerful in WITE (I'd say even too powerful). Station your PVO air bases nearby. Even if LB could reach your rear cities, they are most probably will be unescorted

Pavel, what you're asking here is for Soviet players to play a game of whack a mole in autumn of 41 spending precious APs and armaments to put flak in cities hundreds of miles in the rear that simply were not being bombed at this time in the first place to avoid opportunistic Axis factory bombing. Ultimately, they'll wind up railing all this stuff to the map edge and saying the hell with it. (Stalingrad probably should be evacuated anyways during the winter, regardless of factory bombing. I have always done so. But now it looks like we can add Gorky to that list.)

This in my estimation isn't adding anything to the game in terms of realism. It's just introducing a whole new level of micromanagement in order to deal with some very dubious bombing missions.

In most of my games the SHC does rail them to Urals and I have done the same not knowing why until this thread.

Regardless I just don't think that 7 mediumn bombers (Rumaniian at that) should be able to inflict double digit damage.

quote:

Me too, just give exact steps to reproduce it. I don't see it to happen. I was not even close to reproduce it in the save you provided.

Well I don't know how to reproduce it either as I am playing the Russians not the Germans. You'll have to talk to Saper to find out how he did it. But don't the screen shots I posted above prove that the 7 bombers did inflict 12 points of damage? Or am I missing something here?

quote:

Not sure what you mean by "protected" as I admit I never had a PVO AA regiment in Stalingrad because of the bug.

quote:

You could still build them and they were not useless.

Well if I had built 4 PVO AA Regiments in Stalingrad as you suggested and after 10 turns they only had a combined 8 76mm AA guns (instead of the 80 they are suppose to have) they might not have been entirely useless, but I don't think they would have been too useful either. In any event I am glad to hear the bug has been fixed. I will be better prepared next game.

...But don't the screen shots I posted above prove that the 7 bombers did inflict 12 points of damage? Or am I missing something here?

...

Pavel or Gary need to be able to reproduce most problems to fix them in the code. If they can reproduce it then they can see it happen in debug mode. They are not going to search through over 100K lines of code to find a problem otherwise.

_____________________________

We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing. - George Bernard Shaw

...But don't the screen shots I posted above prove that the 7 bombers did inflict 12 points of damage? Or am I missing something here?

...

Pavel or Gary need to be able to reproduce most problems to fix them in the code. If they can reproduce it then they can see it happen in debug mode. They are not going to search through over 100K lines of code to find a problem otherwise.

That is understandable; but can I at least get an acknowledgement that there is a problem in that I have proven that those 7 Potez 63's did cause 12 points of damage and that if so that is a bug? If so then I will put in the time to start a new game as the Germans in order to reproduce the "bug" which I can then send to Pavel.

I have already put in some time examining all of the last several turns of my game with Saper and it would appear to me that the Potez 63 is the problem. For example below is a screen shot from Turn 15 (ie the turn before the save I sent to Pavel) showing that prior to the Potez's bombing run there was 35% damage caused to the T34 factories in Stalingrad. As an aside I want to point out again that the 11 LAGG-3's that did intercept were ineffective.

Now 7 Potez 63's intercepted by 12 useless MIGGs increase the damage by 10% to 45%. So over the course of two turns 7 Potez's caused 22% damage to the T34 factories in Stalingrad bombing at night even though they were intercepted by a superior number of fighters both times. Not bad for a "tactical bomber" with only a 663 lb bomb load. Again, let me know if you at 2by3 believe this is a bug and I will put in the time to track it down for you.

In game data, for a moment I thought there may be a "spelling" error which for example gives it 10x the power of bombs or something like that. But I didn't find anything unusual. Maybe only that it's a tactical bomber but with quite long range.

I was not getting more than 1-2% with them in the save provided. In general Tactical Bombers get higher accuracy when attacking land targets. I could take another look, but it is better to be moved to the tech section.

I was not getting more than 1-2% with them in the save provided. In general Tactical Bombers get higher accuracy when attacking land targets. I could take another look, but it is better to be moved to the tech section.

Ok, thanks Pavel for looking at this. I'll run some of my own tests. But I am right aren't I? The screen shots I have posted do show 7 of them doing 10% and 12% damage on consecutive turns, or am I reading something wrong? If they did do that kind of damage I suppose it could just be a coincidence; but it seems like an awfully unlikely one.

I've tried the Ploesti Bombing campaign in several PBEMs. In one particular game that actually went on beyond the Russian 1941 uber-winter offensive, I committed huge numbers of Red medium and hvy bombers to the effort in both 1942 and 1943. I'd guess I committed 2/3 of the Red Air Force bomber forces to this effort. This was against an opponent whom I managed to push pretty far south during my 1941 uber-winter offensives. I Was doing my bombing offensives while being within 10-hexes or less of the Romanian Border. Bombed the poop out of PLoesti via night missions before my opponent finally figured out what I was doing. I actually got production down to 0% for two months(+) during the winter and spring of 42-43. It took a couple months to get production down to zero. Although at a very high cost to the Red Air Force. I mainted zero production for several months of continued bombing. I eventually had to stop the bombing campaign due to air losses. But I never saw any sort of effect on the Germans from the complete loss of the Ploesti oil production. When I asked my opponent about the effects of loosing oil production from Ploesti for several months, he said he didn't even notice it was out of action.

From my experience, I have the complete opposite reaction as to the effectiveness of strategic bombing in this game. Moreover my opponent saw zero effects from the complete loss of the Ploesti oil production in our game. Which I suppose goes back to what effect does oil and fuel really have upon this game? I'm convinced it's window dressing -- ala Soviet Heavy Industry and strategic bombing.

From my experience, I have the complete opposite reaction as to the effectiveness of strategic bombing in this game. Moreover my opponent saw zero effects from the complete loss of the Ploesti oil production in our game. Which I suppose goes back to what effect does oil and fuel really have upon this game? I'm convinced it's window dressing -- ala Soviet Heavy Industry and strategic bombing.

Bombing German oil production may have zero effect on the game, but I'm not so sure about bombing important factories like the T34 factories in Gorky and Stalingrad. Along with Kharkov these are the only T34 factories early in the game. Since the Kharkov factories need to be moved, by bombing the other factories the Germans can effectivley stop all T34 production for several turns in the crucial early part of the game. I suspect this may have dire consequences for me in 1942.